Monteverdi: Vespers 1610

Linn The Dunedin Consort has made it something of a mission to give us fresh versions of historical choral masterpieces, firstly with Bach, Handel and Mozart, now with Monteverdi’s colossal Vespers of 1610. The artistic driving force is Dunedin director John Butt, who masterminds a trimmed down version using ten singers, accompanied by His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts. The performance of this exhilarating music – a hugely important compendium of every major style going at the time, from polychoral textures and exquisite solos and duets to state-of-theart 1610 instrumental music – is both sturdy and charismatic. Butt presents the opening choruses like the great granite chunks they are. His instrumentalists negotiate the virtuosic writing with stylish élan. There is intimacy, and there is universal splendour. The shining success of this recording is its honesty, directness and cleanness.